Hot Rod

Found this little toy car at the dog park this morning while out walking the dummies. So, being who I am, I decided to take a picture of the little thing. Now, I should mention, this car is about the size of a Monopoly piece.

The first image is the original; the second being edited with the Snapseed app on my phone; the third is the Snapseed edit run through the Tsu photo editor powered by Aviary; and the final, edited by the Flickr mobile app.

Original: Straight Out of the Camera

Edited With Snapseed

Snapseed Edit Through Tsu

Flickr App Edit

As you can seen, each image has it's own merits. Well, except for the first one, that one's just terrible. I'm still trying to get used to the new camera on the new phone.

Motorcycle Riding Pictures

You know, it occurred to me the other day that I hadn't written or posted anything here for far too long. I guess that's the price of trying to keep up with four different blogs.

Anywho, last weekend I took some pictures while out riding motorcycles with some friends. The trip was an overnighter and I didn't bring my dSLR because I didn't think we'd be stopping as much as we did, but I did have my handy-dandy Note II and GoPro.

If you want to read about the ride, click this link

This was our group at the top of Independence Pass between Leadville and Aspen, CO. This was actually one of those happy accidents that seem to pop up now and again and bring some unexpected joy into our lives. I had the GoPro mounted to the front of the motorcycle to record the winding twisties up and down the pass only to have it take this still instead of recording video. I still don't know what caused that since the camera is set to default to video, but it happened and it turned out pretty gritty and real. It's a fave shot on our club website.

Another of my favorite shots was this one of Sydney's bike on the side of the highway. She's parked it there while some of us pulled on colder weather gear and I happened to catch it with perfect light - perfect everything. I gave it a little edit with Snapseed to give it this vintage photo look. 

There are some of our bikes parked out in front of a restuarant - okay, okay, a saloon - in Leadville, Colorado. Leadville is considered the hightest city in the country if not the world and is a shadow of it's former self. Aside from passers-through, there really isn't much to this old mining town but some 19th century buildings and old west memorabilia. The black bike 'up front' is mine, the blue one belongs to Deb and the red is the same one from the image above. What I love about this image is the symbology: horses lined up in front a saloon. Modern internal combustion technology in front of a building built in the late 1880s. Dichotomy is amazing. 

  For fun, here's another edit of the CBR from above.

Cathedral on the Plains

While returning to Colorado from a funeral in Florida I took a little side trip to Victoria, KS and the Cathedral on the Plains: http://www.kansastravel.org/cathedralofheplains.htm

It was about 100° F out and we had dogs with us so we didn't stop for long. Just long enough to pop our heads in, grab a couple of shots and then walk the dogs around the grounds.

I'd hoped to grab a shot of a lonely church settled out amongst the rolling fields of Kansas, but the village of Victoria got in the way. Instead, I only grabbed these couple of shots with my phone.

Interesting story, according to a church employee, the area was settled by German-Russians. In the seventeenth century (?) Germans were invited to Russia to cultivate the land with the promise of no taxes and no military service for 100 years. When that time was up those families, who never assimilated, left Russia for the New World and promised of no taxes and free land to farm. Some of them came to Kansas.

This church was built by their descendants and has enough seating for nearly everyone in town.

The third image, the one of the tower, seems like it has that HDR halo around it commonly found in terrible HDR. None of my images are HDR. What you're seeing is the sunlight from the backlit tower making the sky around it a little lighter.

Tower One

Took the Pentax out for a while today and filled the memory card (a couple of times). That is, I didn't start off with an empty one, made some space by deleting a bunch of images, took a bunch of photos and then had to delete some more, etc.

The image below, however, was captured and uploaded from mobile. The sky had some great texture tonight and I happened to be at the base of Plaza Tower One. Unfortunately, my dSLR was full so I grabbed this little gem with my Note II. I wish I'd left a bit more sky at the top, but what are you gonna do?

As always, edited (not much) with Snapseed and uploaded on the go.

Having Lunch

Went to lunch with a friend and grabbed this little gem without her knowing. I've since sent it to her and she was very pleased.

As always, edited with Snapseed.

Goofygus

Goofygus

Just like the nearly 365 other days of the year, I took Rufus for a walk about an hour or so after his evening meal. We didn't go far, just to a nearby park where I let him run around off leash for a few minutes.

While he was rolling around in the grass I saw something I'd always wanted a picture of but have never been able to get. Rufus hates the camera. He really does. It doesn't matter if it's my Pentax or my Android. As soon as he sees the camera in my hand he turns away.

Today I didn't have my dSLR, just my Android, so I grabbed a couple of quick shots, much to his dismay. I had to hold him down with one hand while I snapped with the other (which isn't easy to do on a 5.2" touchscreen, by the way).

Anywho, this is one of two images I captured that I liked enough to share.

Why Goofygus? Years ago Rufus was acting goofier than usual so I gave him a slight nickname.

As always, edited with Snapseed.

Reaching the Sky

This is a tree I photographed with my Android while out walking the dogs at the dog park. Edited on the go with Snapseed.

Tug-o-War

I haven't posted recently since my computer went kaput, but I've been wanting to, so here's a couple of Android shots of Charlie playing tug-o-stick with Willow, the pit bull mix at the dog park this morning.

These are, of course, edited with Snapseed.

In the Mirror

Last night I had dinner at the Lumber Baron Inn, a bed and breakfast in an old mansion on the west side of Denver. The entire place was decked out in the macabre, skulls and other ghostly attire, draped just about everywhere as many places are this time of year.

In the upstairs men's room, above the urinal, this skull stared back at those of us relieving ourselves. Naturally, I snapped a photo.

There was some glare and reflection in the image so I had to use some creative editing to reduce those impurities before deeming the image shareable.

Here it is, my final product, edited solely with Snapseed for Android.

Does it scare you?

Same Road / Different Photo

This is a couple of photos of the road as you come into Roxborough State Park taken from different points.

One I treated in black and white while the other seems like a march made in heaven for sepia tones.

Both of them are Android shots and edited with Snapseed.

A Few More Pics from the Dog Park

I went ahead and edited some more pictures from yesterday's outing to the dog park. All of these are edited with Snapseed and were captured with my Note II.

Cherry Creek State Park given a, what I hope is, an old timey vintage look.

Charlie being Regal

Rufus, Being Rufus

Charlie in the Creek

Rufus Trying to Figure Out What's so Important That I have to Kneel down in Front of Him With My Camera

Cloudy Afternoon at the Park

Rufus Found a Crawdad (well, I Found a Crawdad, but Rufus Took it From Me and it Pinched Him)

More Cloudy Skies and Sandy Shores

Rufus

I Already Posted This Image, but in Color. I like the BW as Well.

At the Dog Park

For the first time in weeks I brought Dumb and Dumber to the dog park. They're having a blast however neither one of them wanted to model for me. Plus this Android's camera is slow.

Here are a couple of shot of the two dogs, edited with Snapseed, for your comedic pleasure.

Rufus Hating the Camera in his Face

Rufus in Black and White

Looking Down on Charlie

Charlie Sitting Pretty

After the Flood

Here are a couple of pictures from the hail storm that rolled through eastern Denver/western Aurora, CO this afternoon.

The water in this is actually a park that flooded with more than 6 feet of water height, going so far as to cover signs and guard rails. The sidewalks were, and are, underwater, however the water covering the playground has since receded.

As always, these were edited with Snapseed.

Rufus looking for ducks, or something else to kill

The mist forming from the warmer water hitting the cooler air, with a old photo twist

A young girl separated from the playground by flood waters

Rufus of the Mists

Google+'s New Photo Editing Features

Google decided to roll out new old features to their cloud photo editing options. To be honest, I'm not sure if they retired PicNik or just buried it somewhere else, but the new features are desktop (well, Chrome-top) versions of their popular on-the-go Android app, Snapseed. Why Chrome-top? Apparently the feature is not available unless you're using the Chrome web browser, or presumably the ChromeOS.

 Maybe the Picnik features are still available to other browser users? I'll have to check and update this post.

To find this feature, using Chrome, log into your Google+ account. On the left hand side, choose Photos and then a photo. Once the individual image is open in the lightbox, there should be an Edit option on the top row above the picture. Then edit away... just like Snapseed.

Here's the first image I decided to test this feature on and below I'll post the image from when I edited this with Snapseed on the go many, many, many moons ago:

Originally, I edited this image using the Snapseed app on my Note II.

And here's the unedited original Android shot:

An Evening at the Dog Park

I didn't bring my dSLR to the dog park and I really wish I had considering the amazing sunset I witnessed.

These were taken with my Android and edited with Snapseed.

I especially love the one with the last ray of sunshine escaping over the mountains, red against the bluish clouds behind.

Sunsetting

Here's another sunset in Colorado. Why? Because we've been having some great cloud work during the evenings and I've been wanting to get great pictures of the sunsets.

These are Android shots, edited with Snapseed.